Streekal reached the top five steps. The pistol detonated like a small bomb, releasing all of its significant charge in one bright flash of energy. The blinding explosion blew the weapon apart and took the upper three steps of the staircase with it. Metal shattered. Handrails buckled and spun away. The expanding ball of heat and light enveloped Streekal.

It didn’t harm her at all. But the promethium vapour fuming around her ignited. She was engulfed in a sheet of flame, becoming a burning effigy of a human figure.

She kept moving, but the top of the staircase, wrecked by the blast, was shearing away from the platform. The entire stair structure broke away from the top, dipping slowly and catastrophically into space, spilling the animations, fast and slow alike, off its collapsing length. They dropped away into the darkness below, some glancing and bouncing off the gears and struts of the whirring machine.

The staircase broke off at the base, wrenching away from the catwalk supports, and tumbled after the things it had shrugged off into the air. It fell, grinding and screeching, bending and crumpling.

Streekal fell, arms and legs moving uselessly.

Like a comet, trailing fire, she dropped into the depths. The flames of her descent were visible long after all the other plummeting animations had vanished from view.

Then her light vanished too. She had gone back where she had come from, down to the very base of Keshtre’s tower.

‘Holy Throne,’ breathed Drusher, looking down.

Far below, the darkness winked and flickered. There was a sudden glow, red and dull, that swiftly grew brighter and more fierce.

The promethium sump at the base of the tower had ignited.

Twenty-Three

TWENTY-THREE

The Torment

The fire had been burning for a while. At first, it was far away, down in the darkness where no one could see it, just a dull red glow, roiling in the blackness. It looked as though it would never be serious, never really catch hold, that it would burn itself out and grow cold.

But fire has been deceiving man since it was first given to him by the gods. Or since he first stole it from them. Stories differ. The only truth that matters is that fire likes to betray. It has burned man’s hand since first he took possession of it. When he thinks it is extinguished, it leaps back into life and reveals itself in fury, suddenly overwhelming, all-consuming and too strong to fight.

So with this fire. From the dullest glow to a seething inferno, from nothing to everything in the beat of a heart, taking hold, devouring all, leaving nothing but ashes.

Its heat was upon him, stifling him. Its light was in his eyes. His skin was blistering and flaking. His bones were beginning to fuse and melt.